Sharing, Creative People, and Consumption

Read the article 'Sharing Everything: Why the Way We Consume Has Changed Forever', and a few things hit me. Firstly, the headline. We still consume crap and always will because most of us are sheep who want new things to reflect the people we think we should be. Until advertising and marketing die, this is how it will be.

Secondly, while it's a super idea and may exist in some places over the world, the idea of one giant community sharing stuff just won't work. There are too many arseholes in the world to make this idea possible on a large scale. I know that's a bit pessimistic, but that's my honest opinion.

Thirdly, the sentence, "People don’t want the cognitive load associated with owning," reasons Neal Gorenflo, the publisher of Shareable magazine. "If you’re a creative person, you don’t want to cut the lawn. Or wash your car. It’s like, 'Oh my god, are you kidding me? I could be creating the next piece of software'", makes me want to vomit for three reasons. A) The cognitive load associated with owning? See my first point. What a load of bollocks. B) the whole 'creative person' thing is enough to make me want to stab my eyes out with blunt pencils. If I hear one more person say they are 'creative', I'll poke them in the eye (with my finger, not pencil). Besides, I'm willing to bet that all those 'creative' people (i.e. advertising, marketing, etc.) are the ones who own most crap. C) Not wanting to mow the lawn so you can create the next piece of software? As-sodding-if. Get off your lazy, spoilt arse, mow your lawn and then give creating the next piece of software a shot. Go on.

Jesus...what is the world coming to. While the skeleton of this article is a very good thing, it's padded with all the excess that makes this world as screwed up as it is.